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by August Fai
Summary: A scene in which Harry lusts like mad; people notice; bruises fade; and Draco bites. But not really in that order.


a/n: bite me. no...don't. just don't ask me where the inspiration came from for this, because i don't know myself. and yet–do i ever?  
**warning**: SLASH. You should know by now, dear fanfiction-reader, that slash means love of the male/male kind. If you can't take it, then for God's sakes, don't read it! Otherwise, then please read on.

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There is a way he looks across the Great Hall that can't be ignored: eyes that were once green and lively suddenly become almost acidic, as if whatever he's looking at is poison that makes him ill. But he doesn't look ill–ill of the soul, maybe, but he looks more like _enthralled _or _amazed_. Enthralled at what? Or–amazed at who? There is a slack to his jaw that is not pronounced, but is there. Once he blended in–once, five seconds before; but suddenly he has become the rara avis of the slew of teenagers, and all of this happens in five minutes: the interval between the roast pork and the potatoes.

"Harry." There is a voice that cuts through his reverie, and he looks up unblinkingly. No one is looking at him except for the concerned girl, whether they're used to it or never took notice, no one knows. But she, Hermione: she's taken notice.

She's the epitome of witch genius, after all. The carved caryatid on top of Hogwarts.

"What?" How hard he tries to make his sallow tone rosy and plump again: happy; and not sullen, not regretful, like it sounds. It's not working: she has eyes that can see through his dents, his markings. _You're in love. _She spoke those words before, _you're fucking crazy, _were the ones he howled back at her. _Fucking crazy I'm not in love. _Love. _Hah. _

"You're...staring, again." And her statement is accentuated by the nod of the red haired one next to her: the best friend, and the secret worrier. Harry doesn't want to see it. He doesn't want to hear it. What he wants...what he wants–

–_the shape of a jaw line that gnaws on an apple. _It's too easy to want that shape; that line; that shadow. But he craves it anyway.

"Oh." An _oh _that is neither informed or amused. Ron looks at Hermione: Hermione looks at Harry: and the parallel ends with Harry trying to make it look as if he's _not _staring, merely looking. At the jaw line and the cheekbone; and the skin that is like the inside of an apple; only smoother. Comparisons are something that comforts Harry, because if he cannot have the real thing, the next best thing isn't alright either but it weans the pain off of him for awhile. So he makes as many analogies as he possibly can, and at the moment he could fill a book with the fantasies he has thought of.

It's not an obsession: he is just heavily under the influence.

"Harry..." Oh, fun. It's concerned girl number two, millefleur and childishness in a mane of bright red hair and a smatter of freckles. She's been trained by Hermione to notice things that Harry doesn't: he stares with a languid look on his face that conveys a heavy spark of interest based by an undertone of lust. _With a brush of love, _Hermione insists, and how he wishes he could slap the words away, like a gnat, or the hand that brushes his skin in the subliminal hours of the morning. But he thinks his stare is merely blank: like he's looking _past, _and not _at_. But Ginny's not stupid. She has never been. The schoolgirl crush wore off, but the love never did, and even if, as Hermione insists, he loves the one who hurts him, she's still looking after him.

Three pairs of eyes follow his; concerned girls numbers one and two, and the red-haired one: they land on a fragile epitome of evil. The epitome looks tired, as if he's stayed up all night, but he's got a snark to him that is energizing, like he knows something's coming. _He loves. _Words come back to him, and this time they're Ginny's. _You're blind. Can't you see? He hurts you. Why? _Why, indeed? Why...?

The worrier, the red-haired one: he knows the moans and pleads that Harry cries at night. He's heard the name. He's buried his head under the pillow because he doesn't want to believe it's true:_ oh Draco oh god yes oh god...don't stop._ Ron tries not to listen but what else can he do? Run away? He's tried. It's hard–

–_ickle Ronniekins, your best friend's in love with the pale boy, he's in love, lust, desire, rage. With the snake._

With the snake, with the snake. With the snake.

No one wants to speak anymore because it's over. The pleading is over. The helplessness is over. What they need is a confirmation; a break of continuity. They follow Harry's eyes again: they're acidic, seeping through his pores and making him look taut and edgy; hard and uncontrollable–

–_Harry? Harry, where are you going? Harry!_

Snakes curl and crush. But Harry's up; he's leaving red, he's leaving concerned one and two, he's leaving uncertainty.

"Draco." His voice is deep and feels like it's going to break if he doesn't whisper.

Draco looks up, and everything seems to hush, like a horrible cliche–but it doesn't, really. People are still talking and only a few people are following the conversation that is not there. It is more like _an exchange of words, _or, _a declaration, _or, _Harry's satisfaction. _

"Do you want to get hurt, Potter?" Draco scowls; it's what he's best at, besides smirking and being snarky and bruising and lusting and crushing. _Do you want to get hurt? _

In which way? Harry asks, but never says. The apple, he remembers, the one with the resemblance and the gnawing, Draco's picking it up. Like a predator to prey, only with a shove and a piece of half-eaten fruit. He's not hurt. Draco broke his promise.

But some bruises fade.

_xx _


End file.
